bear - ingn.1 the manner in which one comports oneself; 2 the act, power, or time of bringing forth offspring or fruit; 3 a machine part in which another part turns [a journal ~]; 4pl. comprehension of one's position, environment, or situation; 5 the act of moving while supporting the weight of something [the ~ of the cross].

02 September 2012

Minglingken.

The first essay at this link is an introduction to general chemistry, written entirely of English words derived from Germanic roots. There are no Latinate roots, and no Latinate prefixes or suffixes either.

I have a great love of both chemistry and of language, and the essay delighted me. In particular, I loved all the creative neologisms created to substitute for words such as "atom," "chemistry," and even "periodic table:"

For most of its being, mankind did not know what things are made of, but could only guess. With the growth of worldken, we began to learn, and today we have a beholding of stuff and work that watching bears out, both in the workstead and in daily life.

The underlying kinds of stuff are the *firststuffs*, which link together in sundry ways to give rise to the rest. Formerly we knew of ninety-two firststuffs, from waterstuff, the lightest and barest, to ymirstuff, the heaviest. Now we have made more, such as aegirstuff and helstuff.

The firststuffs have their being as motes called *unclefts*. These are mightly small; one seedweight of waterstuff holds a tale of them like unto two followed by twenty-two naughts. Most unclefts link together to make what are called *bulkbits*. Thus, the waterstuff bulkbit bestands of two waterstuff unclefts, the sourstuff bulkbit of two sourstuff unclefts, and so on. (Some kinds, such as sunstuff, keep alone; others, such as iron, cling together in ices when in the fast standing; and there are yet more yokeways.)

...Coming back to the uncleft itself, the heavier it is, the more neitherbits as well as firstbits in its kernel. Indeed, soon the tale of neitherbits is the greater. Unclefts with the same tale of firstbits but unlike tales of neitherbits are called *samesteads*.

...Most samesteads of every firststuff are unabiding. Their kernels break up, each at its own speed. This speed is written as the *half-life*, which is how long it takes half of any deal of the samestead thus to shift itself. The doing is known as *lightrotting*. It may happen fast or slowly, and in any of sundry ways, offhanging on the makeup of the kernel. A kernel may spit out two firstbits with two neitherbits, that is, a sunstuff kernel, thus leaping two steads back in the roundaround board and four weights back in heaviness. It may give off a bernstonebit from a neitherbit, which thereby becomes a firstbit and thrusts the uncleft one stead up in the board while keeping the same weight. It may give off a *forwardbit*, which is a mote with the same weight as a bernstonebit but a forward lading, and thereby spring one stead down in the board while keeping the same weight. Often, too, a mote is given off with neither lading nor heaviness, called the *weeneitherbit*. In much lightrotting, a mote of light with most short wavelength comes out as well.

The article was written by Poul Anderson. Enjoy. Two other essays (involving English words of Greek origin) follow.

You know, it makes perfect sense that hydrogen-over-oxide is hydrogen peroxide. The prefix "per-" is kind of like "hyper" in that it means "extra." In English IUPAC naming, "per-" appears as a sort of opposite of the prefix "hypo-." here is an example:

Hypochlorite is ClO(-)
Chlorite is ClO2(-)
Chlorate is ClO3(-)
Perchlorate is ClO4(-)

The oxidation state of Chlorine rises by +2 in each step of the series. (+1, +3, +5, +7)

In oxides, the oxygen is typically in oxidation state -2. In peroxides, the oxygen has an elevated oxidation state of -1.

So it is entirely sensible that "over-oxygen" translates as "peroxide." Does the same term for "over" appear in the Danish word for the perchlorate ion?

I'm afraid it's one of those things that makes perfect sense after you've figured it out. And I'm definitely not a chemist.

These vernacular type terms are usually for the basic chemical compounds. So if you are a chemist you'll probably say hydrogenperoksid but if you're going to buy it at the store the bottle will say brintoverilte. Same for "saltsyre" which is, to borrow from the quote above, "salt sourstuff" or HCl.

I googled around and found that the concept of "overchlorat" is used to describe what "perchlorat" means. (If that makes sense.)

Laypeople usually use Danish words to describe scientific/medical terms but those in the know usually use the Latin or English terms. Like pancreas is called pancreas in English, but pancreas is doctor talk here, and for laypersons they use the term bugspytkirtel, which means abdominal spit gland. And I still run into older people who use the word "æggehvidestof" (literally egg-white-stuff) instead of "protein". The only exception I can think of is the word acid, which is syre in Danish. (Acidic = sur, which also means cranky or angry.) You'll see the Latin root in "acidose", but an acidotic patient is still described as "sur", and the acid-base balance is, even by doctors, "syre-basebalance".